Review: Aeroflot A321 Economy Moscow-Kransojarsk
- Konrad Tillman
- 14 minutes ago
- 8 min read
Intro
Following a productive flight onboard the Aeroflot A320 from Kazan, it was time to embark on my next mission over to Siberia, Russia. Now, I've always had a couple of things on my bucket list (by a couple, I mean 1700 😅), but one of them has always been Siberia. So, when the opportunity came up to spend a day in the "second capital" of Siberia, I snatched it up. Why not?
Unfortunately, there was no petting bears like Instagram shows you...
Route- Moscow (SVO)-Krasnojarsk (KJA)
Flight Number- SU1486
Seat- 19A
Aircraft- Airbus A321
Date- August 13th, 2025
Flight Time- 4 Hours and 49 Minutes
Price Paid- 431$ (KZN-SVO-KJA)
How I Booked
Getting from Kazan to Krasnojarsk can either be straightforward or a bit of a pain in the arse. Nordwind operates 2x weekly direct flights, while Nordstar offers the occasional 1x weekly flight. However, considering I had to be there for a very specific flight (the Aeroflot A350), I decided not to chance it and play it safe by flying there the day before, in case of any delays.
Booking 3 days prior to departure, I conjured up an economy fare from Kazan to Moscow, and over to Krasnojarsk, all for 431 USD. Just like with all of my other flights in Russia, I booked through Wego, and within a matter of minutes, my tickets were issued.
Boarding
Finishing up the first portion of my essay due that evening, and my review of Rossiya on the Sukhoi Superjet to St Petersburg, it was soon time to head over to gate 101 for the scheduled boarding time of 9:10 am. Yes, gate 101, the dreadful bus gates 😭. Yes, they even deplane a 744 from bus gates here, routinely...
By the time I had arrived, boarding had pretty much wrapped up, and it was straight on board one of the buses. Ufff, 5 hours in economy, how will I survive at 23 years old (I'm joking). 😅
With the sun beaming down onto the apron and sweating through my skin (never thought I would say that about Russia), it was a bit of a wait before the bus departed. We were the last bus over to our A321 today, which meant there was no comrade left behind. 🫡
By 9:45 am, after about a 10-minute drive, we pulled up to this 9-year-old A321 that had arrived 2 hours prior from Nizhnevartovsk (don't ask me to pronounce that 🥴).
Taking a look back as we waited, I encountered a variety of jets. See, Aeroflot has a very interesting fleet, with a mix of Boeing and Airbus aircraft, and as far as over 80 Sukhois operated by Rossiya.
But the interesting part to me is how they are maintained. Not in a bad way, the airline needs to do what they do to survive. While there are third-party parts available, SU will also cannibalize certain Airbus or Boeing aircraft to allow most of its fleet to be airworthy.
Which brings me to my next point: people often say Aeroflot is dangerous, but it isn't. People claimed that Aeroflot was flying without brakes, but that's not entirely true. It had to do solely with landings in wet conditions, and was attained in less than 11 days after the public knew about it. Having flown some of the sketchiest airlines in the world, and always dying in Sydney in a plane crash, it's bad for business if a jet goes down.
Finally getting up the steps, I was warmly greeted by a lovely FA for today's flight. I have to say, Aeroflot has the best service outside of Garuda and Thai Airways, but we'll save that for the business class review (next).
The Seat/Cabin
I touched on this in the last report, but I’ll go over a brief recap of what to expect onboard the Aeroflot A321, in both business and economy.
Turning right, I came face to face with the 5 rows of business class laid out in a 2-2 configuration. While everything looked the same, it was interesting to see that Aeroflot stocked business class with heaps of amenities. Talking about a blanket, pillow, slippers, an amenity kit, and more. For a domestic narrowbody route, this is practically unheard of…
But moving back to my class (peasant class), it was time to settle back into my economy seat. Seats are laid out in a 3-3 configuration, featuring decent legroom, universal power ports, and overhead vents. The only thing missing would be a seatback IFE screen, but can’t win 'em all.
Unfortunately, the only seat left, which wasn’t a middle happened to be in the back of the middle section, right next to the lavatory. I didn’t find it too bothersome, but keep in mind, I think my sinuses were blocked due to the sheer amount of Beluga vodka consumed. I’d like to say I was kidnapped and force-fed vodka, but it’s so delicious that I did this all on my own 😅.
Departure
Settling into my window seat, you could not contain my excitement. We are talking about Siberia. Yes, Siberia. The home of the bears and the land of the vodka.
Anyways, due to my slow bottom and a few others, we ended up pushing back about 6 minutes later from our remote stand. Pushback is a stretch, as we sort of just started moving 😅.
Anyways, with the safety stuff being announced and all of the blah blah blah, we were wheels up a few minutes behind schedule at 10:10 am local time. Ahh, what a beautiful day… to write an essay 😂
IFE+Wifi
Alright, let’s bring out the big guns, as I had been avoiding it for the past two reports. Once we hit 10,000 feet, I decided that I might as well check out the IFE for review's sake. Aye, bruh, I had stuff to do, ya know. 🥺
While SU does not offer Wifi on their narrowbody fleet, I was pleased to find that economy passengers were treated to a selection of TV shows, movies, games, and even language courses.
I’m not going to go into depth, but most of the content is Russian, with a few international films thrown in there. Understandable due to the sanctions..
But, back to the coolest part: language courses. Education? Not sure that’s in the American-English vocabulary (I’m joking), but it made me realize what a neat invention this was. To learn a few phrases in Arabic or Mandarin before landing is one of the smartest things an airline has done in the past 30 years.
Overall, not bad, and easy to connect to…
Meal Service
Alright, I have avoided this for a little bit, but let’s jump into the meal service that SU offers on a 4.5-hour run.
About an hour into the flight, the FAs came around offering breakfast to passengers. There was a choice between three meals, one being egg-based, another being pancake-based, and some other fruit thing, I believe.
Well, after a little back and forth as the woman FA attempted to ask me in Russian 😅(and my Russian is as good as a Springbok), I finally settled on the pancakes.
I’m not going to go out there and say this was the best meal I’ve had on a plane, but it was pretty sound overall. The texture and taste was good of the pancakes, and combined with the Aeroflot chocolate we got, it made for a filling meal on the 4.5-hour run.
Funny story, I was so happy to get the Aeroflot chocolate that I kept it for 2.5 months before it got damaged.
Why? Well, I was fighting a 350lb yellowfin and found it in my pocket. The only issue I got soaked, and the chocolate was ruined. 😭
Lavatories
While I happened to be seated in a window seat, towards the end of the flight, I decided to utilize the lavatories on board. Unlike the A320, there is an additional lavatory located in the midsection of the cabin, right behind where I was seated.
And yes, there was no Bulgari fragrance, but it was kept tidy throughout the flight.
I did notice that there were often lines for the toilet, and it became a common thing throughout my time on Russian airliners. Now, this could be due to the fact that I don’t fly economy out of the States much, but people seemed to take quite a long time in the lavatories here.
Service
In my past two reports, I didn’t touch on service much, but seeing as this was a 4.5-hour flight, I figured I would. I have to say, Aeroflot offers extremely great service, no matter the cabin. Sure, it’s not going to be personalized in Y, but the crew were always smiling, and there was this lovely older FA who could not have been nicer.
Arrival
After working nonstop and finishing my 3500-word essay, I looked out the window are realized that we were over Siberia.
Attempting to spot a bear drinking vodka, the captain came on to announce that we had begun our descent into Krasnojarsk, and that we should be touching down a little bit late due to headwinds.
Sure enough, with some gorgeous sunset views, we touched down 20 minutes behind schedule onto the solo runway at KJA.
From there, it was smooth sailing: grab my bag from the overhead bin, give a smile to the crew on the way out, and straight in Yandex Go for the one-hour drive to downtown.
I mean, if I am coming here, why not go to downtown Krasnojarsk? Find out more about what happened in the next report, as it is quite something…
Final Thoughts
You know what, it's an absolute treat to fly Aeroflot on their A321. While their A320s need some work, their whole experience in economy was actually nice, and I rarely say that about the economy class 😅. With amazing check-in agents, decent legroom, an acceptable on-time performance, a language course online, and great service, what more could you want for a domestic flight? Honestly...
Russia Series
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